Raising the bar.

The Big Mac has long been the gold standard, the sandwich by which all other fast food is measured. The Big Mac is a standard unit of Fast Food Badness. When Subway wants to sell you their sweet onion chicken teriyaki sub, they tell you that three of these sandwiches have less fat than a single Big Mac.

When you combine two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, then enclose the whole thing in a sesame seed bun, you get 30 grams of fat and 560 calories. Yum.

The folks over at Hardee’s have just introduced a new burger that makes the Big Mac look like a small garden salad with light Italian dressing.

It’s the Monster Thickburger. “Two 1/3-pound slabs of Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun.”

Yeah. There was way too much blood flowing through my arteries anyway. Does this beast come with a free trial prescription to Lipitor, by any chance?

While restaurants like McDonalds are dropping the “Super Size” in an attempt to make their menus a little more friendly to health-conscious folks, it’s interesting to see Hardee’s bucking the trend and taking fast food gluttony to new heights. Damn the cholesterol! Full speed ahead!